Did Fox News’ Sean Hannity just compare President Donald Trump dealing with the FBI’s Russia investigation to George Floyd’s death at the hands of the police?
Yes. Yes, he did.
During Tuesday night’s broadcast of his primetime Fox News program, the pro-Trump star railed against the growing criticism of the police amid the protests over Floyd’s death. After playing video of the New York police union head claiming lawmakers and the press are treating cops “like animals and thugs,” Hannity said he agreed with the sentiment.
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“They deserve better,” he exclaimed. “The vast majority of our police serve with honor and distinction, and it is a dangerous job. Now because of the actions of [one Minneapolis] officer, the inaction of three other officers, what, we are going to have character assassination of all cops, violence against cops, rocks, bricks, Molotov cocktails, a daily occurrence in the United States of America?”
Hannity then pivoted to explaining to viewers that he has devoted much of his airtime to exposing “dirty cops,” highlighting all the coverage he’s given to railing against the so-called “deep state” that he said targeted the president during the probe into Russian election interference.
Insisting he’s always said it is only the “1 per cent” of law enforcement that is bad and not the “99 per cent,” the Fox News host boasted about how “we were right” about the “prosecutorial misconduct” that the president and his allies had to endure. Then he somehow found his way back to Floyd, who was killed after Officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
“We exposed how corrupt high-ranking law enforcement officials tried to rig an election and destroy Donald Trump at all costs—overturn an election,” Hannity exclaimed. “Even the president himself, it is not the same thing as what happened to George Floyd, but it is horrific.”
“He was a victim of crooked cops,” the primetime star continued while insisting he totally wasn’t comparing the two situations.
“Now, again, not the same circumstances, I'm not making any comparison,” he concluded. “A bad cop is a bad cop, and by all means, by the way, the damage was real to the country.”
Hannity isn’t the first Trump-boosting Fox News host to use Floyd’s death as a comparison point for how Trump has been treated.
“And to our African-American fellow citizens, I say this,” Laura Ingraham said late last month. “Given his own experience with an out-of-control FBI and unfair investigation, given all the work on criminal justice reform, President Trump knows how poisonous and out-of-control law enforcement process can be.”
